WASHINGTON (CNN) - Training of and handing over security responsibilities to the Afghan police and military forces has been a central component of Afghanistan strategy during the last two administrations. Among the tens of thousands of documents published by WikiLeaks are a series of reports on the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police. The reports chronicle successes and failures of both agencies from 2004-2009. Although both agencies have had failures, a preliminary review of the documents suggests that the ANP has more problems than the ANA.

Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy in Washington DC, says that the mixed bag of results in the reports are apparent when reading raw military reporting and traffic. "If you had taken 90,000 documents from the Allied forces that invaded Normandy in 1944 until they reached V-E Day in 1945, you probably would have found the same kind of success stories and failures mixed together," Riedel told CNN.

Among their successes were the capture of Ali Mohammed and Akeeb Khan during separate operations in 2007. The documents allege that both men had played roles in the anti-coalition insurgency in Afghanistan, either with the Taliban or Al Qaeda. Both reports go into extensive detail into how and where both men were captured, but do not reveal the sources of the intelligence which led to those operations. Both Mohammed and Khan's names appear in a highly redacted list of detainees held by the United States at Bagram Air Base obtained by the ACLU last January.

Failures in these reports show instances of dysfunction, incompetence, and even criminality within the police and army ranks.

Tribal tensions flared at an ANP station in Delaram in 2005. Two units from different tribes began fighting over money and water. By the time a U.S. military unit arrived on the scene, two ANP officers had been killed and another two were wounded.

In 2007, ANA officers went after five ANP officers who had deserted their unit in an effort to talk them out of their decision or get them to hand over their weapons. According to the report, they returned five minutes later with an ANP officer who had been fatally wounded by a warning shot. That wasn't the end of the incident, though. The report noted that "all ANP in the area are being withdrawn to prevent an attempted honor killing."

Also in 2007, two Afghan police officers got into a heated debate that escalated with one "not seriously" shooting the other, according to the document, which also noted "The shooting was not accidental the policeman (sic) had been arguing with each other for a few days."

In 2008, an unidentified Afghan police officer was in a public shower smoking hashish when two Afghan army officers walked in. The police officer felt threatened and a firefight broke out, in which one army officer was killed and the other wounded. The police officer fled the scene but was later apprehended.

Despite the sheer volume of material that has been released, Riedel, a former CIA officer with experience in Afghanistan and Pakistan, cautioned against jumping to any conclusions. "This is really the raw material of the war, unassessed, raw fragmentary data that I think, in each case, you have to be very careful how much of a larger picture you can conclude from these fragments and snippets."

CNN has not been able to independently verify the authenticity of the documents.

soundoff(3 Responses)

JEFF

So those at CNN are not "thrilled" by wikileaks' leaks. Well thats not too hard to see by the skewed partizan reporting of even this. Perhaps if you had done your duty, at "investigative reporting" instead of the left wing musy feel good "stories" that are
repeated ad-infinitum (over and over) then perhaps there would be no need for wiki types. If the government "doublespeak" and outright lies upon lies were not so then perhaps they might be believed a little more. If yourselves and other alleged
"mainstream media" actually reported the TRUTH perhaps your collective audiances would be much higher than the
pathetic numbers you now draw, and those you try to discredit with such gusto would not be growing by leaps and bounds, and
now likely much more. You can't live forever on your single triumph namely that of Peter Arnett in Baghdad. For the record
none of the stuff brough out by wiki, is new or all revealing just another revelation of lies , thievery, and corruption by governments all 'round the world, try looking at the thievery by EU mep's reported over 5 years ago by internal audit and kept
covered up until now. If you dont think it does'nt concern you, how about the hundreds of millions given to EU by the IMF, where
do you think that money came from a money tree??, yes the US taxpayer.
Best regards keep up the lame work.

Also let's not forget where these terrorist thugs masterminded such terrible attack on innocent civilians. US has been very mild in tackling the real culprits. They have let Pakistani government and its spy agency stew these murderous plans What US should do is take on the Pakistanis directly. Since 2001 we have donated/committed nearly 18 billion dollars to this wretched country, and received nothing in return. Osama is still in hiding. Terrorist activities continue unabated with Pakistani ISI's covert support. Our tax dollars are being wasted in feeding an unreliable ally in form of Pakistan. The US needs Pakistan to access Afghanistan – a landlocked country. Currently Pakistan is the only viable option for US to combat terrorists hiding in the hinterland between Pakistan & Afghanistan. USA could save billions of dollars if it had a real ally in that region. And it can create one and more such allies by disintegrating Pakistan, and help our marines access the terrorist habitats directly from the Persian Gulf.
Many regions of Pakistan already have people who want to secede from the country. USA can help this process by coordinating with the political leaders of NWFP, Balochistan, Sindh and Karachi to disintegrate Pakistan under the supervision of the United Nations.
The Following new countries can be formed:
– REPUBLIC OF PAKHTOONISTAN
– REPUBLIC OF BALOCHISTAN
– PEOPLES’ REPUBLIC OF SINDHUDESH
– REPUBLIC OF JINNAHPUR
USA will then have direct access to deal with the terrorists without having to bribe the Pakistanis.

About this blog

Afghanistan Crossroads is where CNN's reporting converges -- bringing you a diversity of voices, stunning images and video, global perspectives and the latest news from on the ground in Afghanistan and around the world.